Goals on each side of the half by Jedaiah King and Caden Trestrail propelled Fatima College into the final of the Secondary Schools Football League’s National Coca-Cola Boys’ Intercol final by beating San Juan North Secondary 2-0 in semifinal number one at the Diego Martin Sports Complex, on Thursday.
They will now face either St Benedict’s College or Signal Hill Secondary, who will clash in the other semifinal at 4.30 pm on Friday at the Ato Boldon Stadium in Balmain, Couva.
Fatima, the North Zone Intercol title-holder, with a victory over Queen’s Royal College in the final last week at the same venue, made their presence felt early in the encounter. The match was just 10 minutes old when Fatima’s Levi Smith burst into a flash down the right side to deliver for an unmarked Luke Correia to head the ball onto the crossbar with the goalkeeper Elijah Lawrence totally beaten.
Two minutes later, Smith the provider of the first attempt, had now found himself at the end of a left-side centre but his first touch let him down badly, as his curling attempt at goal went aimlessly wide.
Fatima, whose aim of a clean sweep of the titles at stake in this year’s schools’ competitions, seems to be well on track, secured the early dominance with San Juan still unsettled.
Coach Hutson Charles’ decision to use Savio Yearwood to close down Lindell Sween, the San Juan dangerman, worked in tandem with the team’s raging attacks which came from almost any direction.
San Juan resisted the Fatima attacks until the 21st minute when goalkeeper Lawrence failed to hold on to a right-side cross by Smith and King swooped on to the loose ball in a flash to put it into the empty net for the 1-0 advantage.
With Sween under Yearwood’s shackles, the San Juan’s attacks were few and far between. But during the run of play, they came close to the equaliser when Jelani Valentine on the right quickly crossed the ball goalwards with the hope of a lurking teammate, but it instead almost caught the Fatima goalie off the line, the latter quickly went high to tip over the cross in the 29th minute.
Fatima, leading 1-0 close to the halfway break, came close to doubling its score when Micaiah Leach connected with a rasping shot from a free kick that had Lawrence scrambling to push wide in the 42nd minute.
San Juan came closest to the equaliser in 45+2 minutes. Sween set free on the left side of the Fatima goal area centred for the oncoming Valentine to connect from an acute angle but the ball brushed the outside of the Fatima post and rolled to safety.
After the break, Fatima, winner of the Premier Division in 2023, thought their second goal would come from the penalty spot, following a high-lifted boot by Jaheem Danclar that caught Correia in the 81st minute. However, the usually dependable Matthew Barrington saw his spot-kick pushed wide by a flying Lawrence to keep his team in the game.
But there was no stopping the team from Mucurapo Road from going two goals up. Two minutes from the stroke of regulation time, substitute Michael Chaves served a lifted ball inside the San Juan penalty area took it nicely and struck powerfully for Lawrence to parry the ball into the path of Trestrail to fire in the loose ball.
San Juan tried in the dying moments but could not get the goal they needed.
Friday’s match
St Benedict’s College vs Signal Hill, Ato Boldon Stadium, Couva, 4.30 pm.
